Workforce Assessment

This website contains brief country reports on HRH development activities in 2008 from nations belonging to the Asia-Pacific Action Alliance on HRH.

Human resources in health care system in sub-Saharan Africa are generally picturing a lack of adequacy between expected skills from the professionals and health care needs expressed by the populations. It is, however, possible to analyse these various lacks of adequacy related to human resource management and their determinants to enhance the effectiveness of the health care system. From two projects focused on nurse professionals within the health care system in Central Africa, we present an analytic grid for adequacy levels. [from abstract]

Human resources are an essential element of a health system’s inputs, and yet there is a huge disparity among countries in how human resource policies and strategies are developed and implemented. The analysis of the impacts of services on population health and well-being attracts more interest than analysis of the situation of the workforce in this area. This article presents an international comparison of the health workforce in terms of skill mix, sociodemographics and other labour force characteristics, in order to establish an evidence base for monitoring and evaluation of human resources for health.

The purpose of this document is to provide a process, methodology and tools for assessing government human resource capacity to lead and manage an effective implementation of the NPA.

In an effort to improve the health gain that might be achieved from allocated resources, a sector wide framework has been developed for planning, choosing priorities, and committing funds in accordance with agreed priorities. In order to support this effort, any proposed support to the health sector should be programmed through the planning and financial framework. This process should include an assessment of the medium to long term financial and programmatic implications of the proposal.

Human resources management has been characterised by very frequent changes in staff, at all levels. The MoH has taken measures to address this.

The RCN commissioned a survey of 6,000 members in 2000 to explore nurses’ wellbeing and working lives. The results subsequently helped shape RCN policy and materials for members on topics such as bullying and harassment, violence, needlestick injury and employee-friendly working practices. Five years later, the RCN has commissioned a second survey looking at a similar range of issues. This report documents the findings of that survey, and describes differences between the 2000 and 2005 survey findings. [introduction]

Australia is experiencing workforce shortages across a number of health professions despite a significant and growing reliance on overseas trained health workers. The shortages are even more acute in rural and remote areas. It is critical to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the available health workforce, and to improve its distribution. This report describes the Australian government’s objectives of developing a more sustainable and responsive health workforce while maintaining a commitment to high quality and safe health outcomes. A set of national workforce objectives are also proposed.

The 2005 Barbados HIV/AIDS Service Provision Assessment (Barbados HSPA) survey report provides baseline information on the capacity of the formal public health sector in Barbados to provide both basic and advanced level HIV and AIDS services and the availability of recordkeeping systems for monitoring HIV and AIDS care and support. Within the Caribbean region, there is a concern for the recent training of health professionals who provide HIV and AIDS services, for health worker attitudes towards people living with HIV (PLHIV) and for patient movement within the region. The Barbados HSPA captured information on these region-specific indicators in addition to the standard HSPA indicators.

This study is intended to compare the dental health personnal supply to the requirement in each 5-year interval from 1995 to 2015. The results show that there will be 10,100 dentists and 7,718 dental nurses in supply in the year 2015. The personnel requirement was calculated using 3 different techniques. The results show that in the year 2015, the supply of dentists exceeds the requirement regardless of what technique is used. [from abstract]

This data creates a profile of the nursing workforce, which is useful for projecting trends and estimating future requirements. At the corporate level, longitudinal examination over a series of years would demonstrate the relationship between the characteristics of the nursing workforce and the overall requirements for patient care. At the unit level, the data is helpful to examine human resource needs and fluctuations in the workforce characteristics. A human resource profile has many data elements and results from the input of a variety of sources and requires high standards of data entry and management.

Understanding the supply and utilization of nurses is critical to maintaining an effective community health system. There has to be sufficient staff and a work environment that builds on the existing strengths of community health nursing to meet emerging needs. This report provides a demographic profile of community health nurses (CHNs) in Ontario and identifies enablers that support optimal practice of their competencies. [from executive summary]

In order to help improve Royal College of Nursing understanding of the employment experiences of internationally recruited nurses and UK trained black and minority ethnic (BME) nurses, the RCN commissioned a secondary analysis to draw together commentary and analysis from previous surveys.

This report marks the culmination of the Nursing Sector Study. The five year study consisted of two phases, and examined the nursing workforce for all three regulated nursing professions in Canada. Phase I, which concluded in December 2004, examined the state of nursing human resources in Canada. The objective of Phase II was to develop a pan-Canadian nursing human resource (HR) strategy in consultation with government and non-government stakeholders that built on the findings and recommendations presented at the completion of Phase I. [from executive summary]

This report looks at how the landscape of human resources for health (HRH) has evolved and current key challenges. It looks at the complexities of HRH planning and management in the current environment and how various jurisdictions are finding innovative ways to collect and use HHR information. It also talk abouts education and training, workplace environment, distribution and migration, and provides updated data and information on supply-side trends for health professions. [adapted from author]


There is also a reference guide that provides aggregate, supply-based trend information.

The overall objective of this study is to evaluate the capacity as well as the performance of the health facilities (HF) and community associations (community health workers associations (CHW), traditional birth attendant associations (TBA) and associations of people living with HIV (PLWHA), operating in the Gisagara (formerly Kibilizi) District. [from summary]

Partners for Health Reformplus conducted a comprehensive assessment of the public health sector in Côte d’Ivoire to quantify HR available and what is needed to maintain basic health services while scaling up HIV/AIDS services to reach targets at the national level and at the global level through initiatives such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the World Health Organization’s 3 by 5 Initiative, and the Millennium Development Goals. [from abstract]

This is a comprehensive review of the Pharmacy Workforce in Northern Ireland undertaken between February and April 2001. It outlines themethodology and discusses the results obtained with regard to the areas of recruitment and retention, demand and models of deployment. [adapted from author]

This text presents the context and background, the methodology and some of the main results of the regional consultation on the critical challenges for human resources in health in the Americas. This consultation hopefully documents how the countries in the Americas are facing the main challenges to the development of the health workforce. The main results and suggestions by the actors consulted with regard to the role of international cooperation in the countries of the Region are presented, so that the countries and international agencies can better formulate common strategies of development and strengthening of the work force in health.

This brief article provides a general introduction to HRH policy and the HRH situation in Myanmar.

This research study is a situational analysis and investigation to propose alternative models, including estimation of the quantitative demand for Mobile Emergency Medical Service Units (MEMUs) and the demand for Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) in Thailand during the next two decades. Three models of the MEMUs, and three categories of EMTs are proposed. In producing all kind of EMTs, their career development and continuing education should be planned. [from abstract]

This paper is mainly intended to show the demographic implications for Bangladesh’s Health-human resources production in the next two decades as absolute increase in Population is still too high that the economy can cope with. [author’s description]

The difficulty of ensuring an adequate and appropriate distribution of health services, together with increasing financial pressures in the public sector, are forcing many countries to consider using more rigorous methods for determining staffing levels in the health facilities. The Workload Indicators of Staffing Need (WISN) method is one such method. It uses a form of activity analysis (activity standards), together with measures of utilisation and workload to determine staffing requirements. The method provides a vehicle for assessing localised staffing needs that is believable and which at the same time is sharply different to historic methods.

The HIV/AIDS Service Provision Assessment (HSPA) was developed to assess the
quality and capacity of HIV and AIDS-related services in high prevalent situations. information on both basic and advanced level HIV and AIDS services and the availability of recordkeeping systems for monitoring HIV and AIDS care and support. Within the Caribbean region, there is a concern for the recent training of health professionals who provide HIV and AIDS services, for health worker attitudes towards people living with HIV and AIDS and for patient movement within the region. The Dominica HSPA captured information on these region-specific indicators in addition to the standard HSPA indicators.

The 2004 Egypt Service Provision Assessment (ESPA 2004) survey was designed to collect informationon the provision of reproductive health and child health services in Egypt in order to complement the information obtained through the 2003 Egypt Interim Demographic and Health Survey. The ESPA 2004 collected information on the preparedness of health facilities in Egypt to provide high quality care to clients seeking services for family planning, maternal health, child health, and sexually transmitted infections. A representative sample of 659 clinics of all types of facilities, in both government and nongovernmental organization facilities, was assessed. The survey included, in addition to the resources of the facilities, interviews with service providers, observations of consultations between the providers and clients, and interviews with clients after they were served. The information included in this report is important for identifying areas of intervention that will help improve the quality of family planning, maternal health, and child health services provided to clients. [preface]

This environmental scan of pharmacy technicians is intended to develop an accurate summary of knowledge, issues and activities relating to the roles and responsibilities, curriculum and accreditation, and certification of pharmacy technicians in Canada, from a national, provincial, territorial and international perspective. [from summary]

Using the training needs projection methods in the Spectrum Policy Modeling System software module ProTrain

This report presents results from the Egypt Health Care Providers Surveys, the objectives of which were to: provide a comprehensive picture of all sources of health care services; provide policy relevant data on critical issues for health sector reform; and create a database on health care providers for use by the Ministry of Health and Population in developing policy reform proposals. Five separate surveys were conducted on health care institutions, private clinics, pharmacies, dayas (traditional birth attendants), and other practitioners. The sample of 10,048 providers was developed from a complete enumeration of all health care providers in sampling areas and data from the 1986 national census.

Using the most updated information on the supply of physicians over a 20-year period, this paper projects the size of the future global need for, demand for and supply of physicians to year 2015, the target date for the Millennium Development Goals. [adapted from abstract]

This document report on the trends of HRH during past fifty years including the issues of unqualified doctors in rural areas, geographical differences in HRH, and the increase in medical school graduates. It also forecasts HRH needs for fifteen years from 2000 to 2015.

Few countries in Latin America have experienced in such a short period the shift from a socialist government and centrally planned economy to a liberal market economy as Nicaragua. The impact of such a change in the health field has been supported by the quest for reform of the health system and the involvement of external financial agencies aimed at leading the process. However, this change has not been reflected in the planning of human resources for health.